Mark Buehrle has come to a decision regarding where his family will live during the six months that is the MLB regular season.

How about there’s no place like home.

Buehrle, one of the ace pitchers the Blue Jays acquired during the off-season, is a proud dog owner including a two-year old pit bull named Slater.

Therein lies the problem. Given the fact that Ontario has banned that breed of dog, Buehrle had to resolve the issue of where to place Slater during the season.

He considered taking up residency in the Niagara Falls, N.Y., area, leave Slater in the care of friends or keep Slater at home along with the rest of his family.

Buehrle told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN that the dog and his family — his wife Jamie and his two children plus the four dogs — will remain at home and he will soldier on alone in Toronto.

“We’re not trying to make people feel sorry for us,” Buehrle Told ESPN. “Obviously they’re going to say, ‘You make a lot of money. Boo hoo.’ I know it’s part of baseball and every person deals with it, but this is our first time being away from each other all season. We’re going to travel and see each other and make it work. But those nights when we have a Sunday day games and I can go home and have dinner with the family and give the kids a bath and put them to bed, that’s what I’m going to miss.”

To non-pet owners the decision may seem dopey. Good pet owners, though, can understand and agree.

“A lot of people have said, ‘We’ll just keep Slater for you,’” Jamie Buehrle said. “To me, that would be like if we moved somewhere that only allowed boys. I wouldn’t leave my daughter behind. Six or seven months is a lot of time. Slater would adjust. He’s real easygoing. But I don’t want him to bond with someone else. He’s our dog. That wasn’t really an option.”

SAY NO TO DRUGS

Major League Baseball is once again struggling with drug-related issue and the other day Curt Schilling tossed his hat into the debate by telling ESPN radio that he had been encouraged to use PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) at the twlight of his career.

“At the end of my career, in 2008 when I had gotten hurt, there was a conversation that I was involved in, in which it was brought to my attention that this is a potential path I might want to pursue,” Schilling said in the ESPN interview.

However, he refused to say who he had the conversation with.

“Former members of the organization,” was all Schilling would say. “They’re no longer there. But it was an incredibly uncomfortable conversation because it came up in the midst of a group of people. The other people weren’t in the conversation, but they could clearly hear the conversation, and it was suggested to me that at my age, and in my situation, why not, what did I have to lose? Because if I wasn’t going to get healthy, it didn’t matter, and if I did get healthy, great.

“It caught me off guard, to say the least, but that was an awkward situation.”

Schilling should expect a call from MLB to elaborate.

WHAT’S THAT ODOR?

Speaking of PEDs, Ryan Braun’s involvement with Tony Bosch and his south Florida anti-aging clinic just doesn’t pass the smell test.

A year ago, Braun, the golden boy of the Milwaukee Brewers flunked a drug test but won on appeal thanks to a technicality when the person in possession of his sample didn’t follow shipping protocols.

Braun’s named has surfaced in the Bosch brouhaha following the revelations that named the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Melky Cabrera among others as participants.

Braun’s defence this time around is simply ludicrous as he is claiming that his contact with Bosch was simply as a consultant on his drug suspension appeal. In other words he is claiming that he contacted a person who doesn’t have a medical license and someone who was connected to a player who was previously suspended for PED use (Manny Ramirez) as a credible authority on the subject. Okay, we’ll buy that.

Braun caught a break a year ago. Could he skate this time around as well?

His credibility, meanwhile, is vanishing.

KING’S RANSOM

(King) Felix Hernandez is on the verge of striking it rich with the Seattle Mariners.

Sources say that the two sides are set to announce a seven-year, $175-million contract extension.

The 26-year-old right-hander, who won the AL Cy Young in 2010, last season went 13-9 with a 3.06 ERA in 33 starts.

KNUCKLING UNDER

The marriage of sport and reality TV has already taken place and MLB Network will be jumping into the fray this year with former Boston Red Sox knuckleball right-hander Tim Wakefield teaching his pitch to five former NCAA quarterbacks on a show called The Next Knuckler. It debuts Feb. 13.

Doug Flutie, of NCAA, CFL and NFL fame, will be one of the participants.

The winner of the competition will receive an invitation to spring training with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

R. A. Dickey, last year’s National League Cy Young Award winner with the Mets who will anchor the Blue Jays rotation this season and is a knuckleball thrower, will be featured on the program.

The other contestants will be former major league third baseman Josh Booty of LSU, his brother John David Booty of USC, David Greene, who played for Georgia, and Ryan Perrilloux, who played for LSU.

Kevin Millar, who played one season with the Jays (2009) is a co-host.

Hard to believe that Jose Canseco isn’t part of this.

LYON LANDS

Veteran right-handed reliever Brandon Lyon, who pitched well for the Jays last year after being acquired from the Houston Astros, has reached agreement on a one-year deal with the New York Mets.

The Jays had some interest in bringing Lyon back, but that ship has now sailed.

With the Jays, Lyon was 4-0 with one save and a 2.88 ERA. In 30 appearances, 25 innings, he struck out 28 and walked nine.